Abstract
Rats can be trained to associate relative spatial locations of objects with the spatial location of rewards. Here we ask whether rats can localize static silent objects with other body parts in the dark, and if so with what resolution. We addressed these questions in trained rats, whose interactions with the objects were tracked at high-resolution before and after whisker trimming. We found that rats can use other body parts, such as trunk and ears, to localize objects. Localization resolution with non-whisking body parts (henceforth, ‘body’) was poorer than that obtained with whiskers, even when left with a single whisker at each side. Part of the superiority of whiskers was obtained via the use of multiple contacts. Transfer from whisker to body localization occurred within one session, provided that body contacts with the objects occurred before whisker trimming, or in the next session otherwise. This transfer occurred whether temporal cues were used for discrimination or when discrimination was based on spatial cues alone. Rats’ decision in each trial was based on the sensory cues acquired in that trial and on decisions and reward locations in previous trials. When sensory cues were acquired by body contacts, rat decisions relied more on the reward location in previous trials. Overall, the results suggest that rats can generalize the idea of relative object location across different body parts, while preferring to rely on whiskers-based localization, which occurs earlier and conveys higher resolution.
Highlights
Object localization is a basic task in all perceiving agents, living or artificial
To test the effect of previous trials on rat decision, we looked at two groups of rats: group 2 (6 rats, Narrow arrangement, Block training) and Group 4 (3 rats, Wide arrangement, Staircase training, see Table 1), all rats in both groups having a single whisker
We show that rats that were trained to localize objects with their whiskers can transfer the task to other body parts – primarily trunk and ears – termed here “body.” This transfer was quick in cases where body contacts occurred before whisker trimming, and slower otherwise
Summary
This is an active and dynamic task – animals move their sensory organs while localizing objects around them (Uexkull, 1926; Kleinfeld et al, 2006; Diamond et al, 2008) When rats explore their environment, they use a combination of body, head and whisker movements to effectively comb the environment for interesting features. When the rat chooses to explore that object with different sensory modalities (e.g., moving from macrovibrissa-based sensing to nostril-mouth-microvibrissa sensing), a transfer between these frames of references is required. Rats typically implement such transfers immediately – within one sensory sampling cycle – suggesting that these frames of references are continuously linked (Sherman et al, 2017)
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